Gracie

Fyi a winch with rope needs to be covered for most of the time. The uv from the sun weakens the rope also. In my line of work we use winches with rope everyday and the biggest enemy to rope is uv light and dirt.

SWRUBI

Nice article on the winch shootout. Surprising as hell was the Chicago Electric offering. No way in hell would I buy a winch from non other than Harbor Freight. Everything else I have bought there is a use once or twice and throw away tool.

BUT for this winch to do a decent enough job in the shootout puts me to ease that for the casual user, most winch offerings are good to go. Warn is the name in the industry and still American made which makes them top dog.

I got a great price on a Smittybuilt XRC8 synth. line and confident that when I need it it will do the job --- if not I'll post up and SOS on the forum and someone with a Warn can come bail me out!

Runewolf1973

There is a possibility that ANY electric winch could fail...or you could wake up and find it stolen. That is why I'd rather spend $400 on a Smitty or Rugged Ridge winch and still I would have enough money left over to by a good hand winch like the More Power Puller. I don't think there is anything wrong with going with a lesser expensive winch provided you always have another means as back-up.

CA-JK

You nailed it bro, I think it's funny as hell that about 80% of the members on this forum have never even had a Jeep or been off road prior to buying their JK. Now everyone is an expert because they "saw it on the forum". Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of great info on here that can help you out, but there are also a lot of BS opinions as well.

To the OP, buy whatever winch you want. You can spend $1,500 on a shiny new winch that everyone says will never fail or you can buy the $300 winch that was made in China. My "shitty", made in China winch has been pulling people out of mud, sand, rocks and snow for over 3 years now and I haven't had one problem with it. If I had to do it all over again, I’d buy the exact same winch without hesitation.

I've had Warn, Superwinch and Ramsey winches on my past Jeeps and they all have their quirks. There is more than one post on here about a Warn winch failing. Sure Warn fixed it and made the repairs at no cost to the owner, but they were still stuck when their winch broke. Everything breaks when you play hard, it's just the nature of our hobby. I like to tell people that are new to Jeeps if you can't afford to fix whatever you break out on the trails, you shouldn't be out on the trails!

1mhenry

I had a Warn winch for years and I never had a problem with it. Great but I'm going to put a Smitty on my JK. Now why would I change brands when I had great service on the other brand? Its dollars I really do belive you get what you pay for, and I do think the Warn is the better winch. But I also know I will use it 2 to 4 times a year on the high side. When I factor in the cost difference I just cant justify the difference today. I think I will be just fine with the Smitty. If money was no object I would buy the Warn but money and my intended use is the object. If I thought I would use it more I would probably spend the extra. Just my thoughts...........